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EVENT AND VENUE SAFETY 2
When thinking about a sporting event the last thing on the mind
of an excitedspectator waiting to see his or her son win the state
football championship is the safetymeasures that have been put in
place to make sure everyone at that event is safe fromharm. Keeping
people safe is a top priority at sporting events everywhere and it
is referredto as event risk management. Event risk management is
defined as the systematic process
of assessing the impact of an incident on the infrastructure,
assets and stakeholders andimplementing countermeasures to reduce
the risk and mitigate the impact of crowd controlissues,
sport-related terrori sm, and natural/medical hazards ( Cieslak ,
2011). In generalterms this means we have clear action plans in
place for bomb threats, bad weather, andhealth emergencies during
events. Event safety and venue security, or event riskmanagement if
you prefer, are at work at all levels of sport but I am sticking
tointerscholastic event sport safety for the sake of this paper.
The primary objective of thisinvestigation into event safety and
venue security at Saline High School is to evaluate theaction plans
in place for spontaneous terror/rivals, and evaluate staff first
aid training. Inaddition, I will also be giving affective
recommendations and feedback on how to improvethe action plans
already in place for these situations and training.
Saline High School was the venue I choose to focus on for my
research. I emailed theathletic director on November 9 th , at
which time he offered to be interviewed. He alsooffered to help me
in getting the other coaches to fill out there surveys, as he
stated in ourinterview the coaches have a lot of people wanting
them to answer questions like theseand th ey tend not to respond
(Wh ite, personal communication, Nov. 19, 2012). I sent outan email
to my other team members inviting them to the interview, they did
not come. Iinterviewed the AD, Rob White, on November 19 th 2012 at
3:15 pm-3: 35pm in his office atSaline High School. The soccer
coach, the football coach, the baseball coach and the
softballcoaches also filled out the interview sheets and surveys
and gave them to the AD for me topick up during the interview. My
teammates tried contacting all of the other coaches viaemail
without success including the volleyball coach, who was out of
town.
The data that was collected consisted of various yes and no
questions about eventsafety and security. The coaches and the AD
were also given an open-ended questionnaireallowing for more
flexibility in their answers. The interviews stayed on topic, the
interviewquestions on the sheets were the only questions used in
the interviews. During myinterview with the AD a lot of interesting
things came up, for instance rivalries betweenfootball teams. The
AD mentioned to me that he had to take special precautions during
arecent football game against Cass Tech (White, personal
communication, Nov. 19, 2012).He was worried about fights amongst
the spectators because of the type of fans Cass Techhas. He also
expressed a strong desire to have an average crowd control ratio of
100 to 1instead of 500 to 1 , but that wasnt an option right now
(White, personal communication,Nov. 19, 2012).
The AD seemed to have his staff very prepared for emergency
action plans. He has alaminated emergency contact cards taped in
front of the scoreboard operators in case ofemergencies so the
information is right in front of them (White, personal
communicationNov. 19, 2012). The student athletes also have to have
emergency information cards filledout by their parents before they
can play sports. I was also informed that medical staff is onsite
at all times during sporting events in case an emergency occurs.
They also do their ownsecurity training, which I found interesting.
The AD did mention a place where he feels theyfall short and thats
when it comes to things like active shooters. He basically said
random
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EVENT AND VENUE SAFETY 3
acts of violence like these are difficult to have an action plan
for especially when thesporting events are held in open areas
outside (White, personal communication, Nov. 19,2012).
In comparison to the ADs certainty on everything, the coaches
seemed to be on thesame page. Figure 1 below shows the average
level of certainty for each of the coaches and
the AD based on the surveys provided. Figure 1
The highest score possible was 120, scoring all fives for 24
questions. The coaches and ADs
numbers actually came out pretty close with the baseball coach
being the lowest (White,personal communication, Nov. 19, 2012)
(Seegert, personal communication, Nov. 19, 2012)(Palka, personal
communication, Nov. 19, 2012) (Restrick, personal communication,
Nov.19, 2012) (Theisen, personal communication, Nov. 19, 2012). It
is also interesting to notethat the baseball coach did not think
that there was safety training for the event personnel(Theisen,
personal communication, Nov 19, 2012). Since I did not speak to the
coachdirectly I am not sure how much of this was confusion with the
questionnaire or his actualopinion.
After my twenty-minute interview with the AD I do have some
recommendations. Asnoted earlier in the paper the AD made direct
reference to potential spontaneous terror inour discussions about
the Cass Tech fans. I feel the AD needs to be very direct with his
staffwhen it comes to potential situations that could arise during
events like these. He needs toprepare meetings with his staff and
give them examples of things that could possiblehappen so they have
every avenue covered. He also could try and find some sort of
fundingin order to increase his crowd control ratio to the desired
100 to 1. This would also serve tokeep the crowds under better
control at all events.
The AD also needs to get a better grasp on the active shooter
scenario, especiallytoday with all the random violence that takes
place in schools. He could do this by staging afake attack to see
how his staff responds. He could then give them feedback and
makeimprovements on the area where he fell short during the
rehearsal. Lastly, I want to make arecommendation that the coach
make sure all staff are aware that medical staff are on siteat all
times during events and that CPR and first aid training are
necessary for all coachingstaff. In the interview notes I sensed
some confusion amongst the coaches when it came tothis, this could
only serve to cause more confusion during a time of emergency if
notstraightened out.
In conclusion, event risk management is a serious business in
the sports world at alllevels. Interscholastically it should be of
even greater importance because of the scope ofresponsibility put
on coaches for the safety of children. Saline H.S., for the most
part, seemsto be doing a good job in making sure all their staff is
trained to handle these situations.
0
50
100
150
AthleticDirector
Softball Coach FootballCoach
Soccer Coach BaseballCoach
Event Safety and Security
Mean Score
